That was the only reason she could see for those messages. They made her seem obsessed, more than she was, and like she was forgetting major things when she denied sending them. She almost couldn’t blame Devon for being worried.

Almost.

The first page of her journal was the class roster. Lia erased the line she had drawn through Abby’s name when she figured Abby wouldn’t play.

Abby Ascher: covered up as an accident during a run by someone who knew her favorite paths to take.

Lia checked her phone. Fifty-two missed messages. She opened the only message Gem had sent.

Don’t check ANYTHING. Call me.

She called, and the phone rang as she ran down the rest of the list.

Ben Barnard: attacked at his house and the hand he was tagged out with brutalized.

“Lia!” Gem’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Are you okay?”

“So I guess my name is already in everyone’s mouth?” Lia asked.

Eric Bins: totally fine and not a part of this at all.

Gem groaned. “Sort of. Mostly because everyone knew you were playing and then someone saw you. How are you?”

Gem didn’t even pretend to dance around the question of “did you do it?” They knew.

Lia leaned back against her headboard and pulled her knees up to her chest. “My mom asked me if I killed them.”

Gem hissed.

“Devon apparently has been talking to someone pretending to be me,” Lia said. “No clue what to do about that or why or who it is other than it must obviously be the killer because you don’t have two weird things happening at once.

“I was at the park where they found Cassidy.” Lia pulled her journal onto the top of her knees. “Someone chased me there, and I was on the phone with Devon. Surely that’ll be enough to prove it wasn’t me?”

Cassidy Clarke: head wound in the park while stalking Lia.

“I’m the only thing that ties the deaths together.” Lia traced a line around each name—Ascher, Barnard, Clarke. “Cassidy was my assassin.”

“Jeez,” whispered Gem. “You are the common thread.”

“So either I’m a serial killer and I forgot all about it,” Lia said while Gem hemmed and hawed over the phone, “or there is a serial killer trying to frame me.”

“Don’t they usually start with small things, though?” Gem said. “I barely have my life together. Don’t tell me someone in our class has already worked their way up to killing us and being able to frame someone.”

Lia erased the line she had drawn through Devon’s name, too. “Well, I sure as hell don’t have my life together enough to do all this.”

The game tied her to each of the dead, and something, like a word on the tip of her tongue, stuck in her mind. She stared at her journal, couldn’t think of it, and tossed the book aside.

“Get some sleep,” Gem said. “I think you’ve earned it, and maybe it will all have blown over by tomorrow.”